How Apple may kill the smartphone in 10 years: Gene Munster
While Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iMac updates and the new HomePod speaker drew most of the attention at the company’s World Wide Developers conference Monday, investors may have missed the most notable trend coming from the tech giant.
“Augmented reality. This is going to be the new operating system and that was the big news at WWDC,” Gene Munster, Apple analyst and Loup Ventures, founder told FOX Business’ Stuart Varney. Munster, considered one of the top Apple watchers, added, “[It] is going to change how we interact and it is eventually going to replace the smartphone. Think of the smartphone eventually going away in the next ten years. That is the next wave.”
The new technology blurs the line between what’s real and what’s computer-generated by enhancing what we see, hear, feel, and smell. Apple said their new ARKit tool will provide advanced augmented reality capabilities on iOS to allow for “fast and stable motion tracking” that makes objects look like they’re actually being placed in real space, instead of hovering over it.
Munster was not as enthusiastic about the HomePod, which was developed to rival Amazon’s Echo (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google’s Home (NASDAQ:GOOGL).
“I think they are always playing catch-up. That’s what they did with the iPad and the iPhone and it’s no different here with this speaker, they are about two years late but what they are doing is being really distinct around the music piece of it,” he said. “This is their game plan, they kind of sit back and watch people through the process and then they take that special angle and I think that their angle here today is around the music piece but don’t be mistaken, this product is not about music. This is about a digital assistant. This is a new way that we are going to interact with these devices.”
The Nasdaq Composite has gained nearly 17% this year, about double the S&P 500, with stocks such as Google and Amazon, trading above $1,000 level for the first time. In his hunt for the next sweet spot, Munster is eyeing Elon Musk’s Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA).
“They’re about renewable energy. It’s not about making a great car. I think this company can be dramatically bigger in the next five years,” he said.